George Burns: All My Best Friends

Description for GEORGE BURNS: ALL MY BEST FRIENDS by George Burns with David Fisher:

In last year's number-one bestseller GRACIE: A LOVE STORY, George Burns told of his lifelong love affair with his wife and stage partner, Gracie Allen. ALL MY BEST FRIENDS is the grand story of the only other passion in his life---show business and the legendary stars.

George Burns's career has spanned the history of modern show business; he has starred in big-time vaudeville; in radio, television, the movies, and the recording industry; and on the nightclub stage. ALL MY BEST FRIENDS is the history of modern show business, as George Burns has lived it. More than that, it is the backstage story of the people who made that history.

They were all his best friends: Jolson and Jessel and Cantor and Durante; the Marx Brothers and the Ritz brothers; Ed Wynn, Sophie Tucker, and Fanny Brice; Walter Matthau, Carol Channing, Bobby Darin, Ann-Margret, and Brooke Shields. And most of all, Jack Benny. this is the Story of friendship and love, both onstage and off.

"most of what I said is true," George Burns admits. "The rest is show business." As a group, George's friends created and shaped show business today. Like George, many of them started by performing on street corners, and eventually they made it in vaudeville. In this book we get to know them as they really were: their loves and feuds, their gimmicks.

With the invention of radio a new form of comedy developed---the situation comedy. And then came the movies, which attracted the stars of vaudeville and radio, and the Hollywood entertainment community was born. At the center of this community was a group of top comedians who met for lunch daily at a large roundtable at the Hillcrest Country Club. As one of the last survivors of that famed roundtable, George Burns remembers what it was really like.

They're gone now, most of the legendary stars of show business, and George will remember the sad moments too. "I went upstairs to Jack's room and he was lying there, his hands clasped in front of him, just like he used to hold them onstage. He looked like he'd just told a joke and was waiting for his laugh. Some joke."

ALL MY BEST FRIENDS is the story of a long, loving life in show business told with the same joy and laughter that made GRACIE a national bestseller.